


when the growing pains subside

by fakecharliebrown



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Brothers, Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, Conversations, Gen, Growing Up, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Nonbinary Kita Shinsuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakecharliebrown/pseuds/fakecharliebrown
Summary: Osamu sighs. The anger is draining out of him, his will deserting him with every passing second. “Don’t make me go with ya,” he pleads. “Don’t make me follow ya, even though it’ll make me miserable.”“Nobody’s forcin’ ya to play volleyball,” Atsumu snaps. “Ya don’t hafta stay with me just ‘cause I said I wanted ya to.”“Yeah, I know,” Osamu says. “But I would.”or; the Miya twins have a conversation that's been a long time coming.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Osamu, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Comments: 8
Kudos: 77





	when the growing pains subside

**Author's Note:**

> title from growing pains by maria mena :,)

Their longest fight is only long because it keeps getting shoved to the back burner. They’re busy, busy with nationals and busy with relationships and busy with schoolwork, too busy to dedicate all of their attention to something as important as the crumbling bridge between the two of them. It comes in spurts. There are days where they rip into each other with vitriolic anger, acidic barbs and searing lividity burning behind their eyes and fists. But some days, it’s like there’s nothing wrong at all, days when they aren’t enemies on opposing sides of a battle, two main characters locked in a tragedy for the ages. Some days they are just twins, built-in best friends who only hate each other a little bit. 

It’s weird, but the two of them have never really been  _ normal,  _ so it’s fine. Really, it is. 

Osamu wakes up to the sound of some cheesy American pop song blaring from Atsumu’s alarm clock radio. He reaches down and chucks a slipper at Atsumu’s sleeping form, scowling as he pushes himself to sit up. His eyes droop, his entire body longing for the sweet cocoon sleep had offered him.

Atsumu sits up with a snort, slapping his alarm clock at least six times before his hand finds the off switch. The two of them stare at each other for several seconds, regarding the other. An unspoken agreement seems to settle between the two of them—not today. Today they will not love each other, they will not hate each other. They will not exist for each other today. The fight can continue tomorrow. 

Osamu throws back the covers and swings his legs off of the bed, stretching until his spine pops and some of the tension releases from his shoulder blades. He scratches his ribs, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. He can hear Atsumu shuffling around on the other side of the room, but he pays his brother no mind as he heads into the bathroom to change into his school uniform.

He spits a mouthful of toothpaste foam into the sink just as Atsumu pounds on the bathroom door, trading spots to go head into the kitchen for breakfast. He waves to his father as he passes, grabbing a banana before he snags his bookbag and leaves, all without so much as speaking to Atsumu. It’s weird, this strange limbo they’ve found themselves in. Weird, but Osamu doesn’t really know what else to expect. 

Kita doesn’t even look surprised when Osamu arrives alone at the gym for practice twenty minutes early. They just wave him over, reaching up on their tip toes to brush his bangs away from his eyes and press a kiss to his forehead. 

“Mornin’,” they greet. “Wanna help me set up the nets?”

One of the things Osamu loves most about Kita is that they always seem to know when they should and when they shouldn’t ask. They’re perceptive like that.

Osamu smiles softly down at them. “Sure,” he says. “Just lemme change.”

He changes alone in the locker room, and pretends there isn’t a gaping hole, deafening silence at his side where Atsumu’s locker sits unopened, waiting for the false blond to arrive fifteen minutes after Osamu.

It’s weird. 

-

Osamu thinks it started eons ago, when the twins first encountered volleyball on television. They’d been fighting over a ripped toy—Atsumu tore the arm off of one of Osamu’s favorite plushies, and Osamu cried for fifteen minutes before Atsumu got mad at him and the two of them ended up brawling on the floor of their bedroom. When they ran out to the sitting room to present the mutilated toy to their father, each one talking over the other to explain their side of the story, they found him watching volleyball and they were immediately enamored, the toy forgotten. 

Osamu stares, wide-eyed, as the players on the court run around like mad, trying desperately to keep the ball in the air. They look so small on the little television, tiny ants playing in a gym that's probably bigger than the entire apartment where the Miya family live. 

“What’s that?” Atsumu asks. Osamu glances at him momentarily before refocusing his attention on the players on the court and the way their brightly-colored jerseys almost seem to blur before his very eyes. 

“That’s volleyball,” their father says, leaning forward on the couch. Osamu turns back to look at him, but Atsumu can't seem to stop watching the game, completely transfixed. “Six players on the court work together to keep the ball from hitting the ground and score by getting the volleyball to hit the ground on the other team’s side of the net.”

Osamu squints at the TV. “How come that guy’s standing in the middle of it?”

“That’s the setter,” their father says. “His job is to set the ball so the spikers can hit it.” 

Osamu tilts his head to the side. “So, every time the team gets a point—” he swivels to look at his father again, “—it’s because of that guy?”

His father laughs. “Not quite. He’s pretty important, though. The setter is the glue of the team. Without a good setter, even the best spiker would suffer.”

Atsumu leans in closer to the TV. His eyes are wide, his mouth slack-jawed and hanging open the longer he watches the volleyball game.

“But the setter still needs his spikers,” their father continues. “You can’t win a volleyball game all by yourself.” 

“Why not?” Osamu asks, scrunching up his face. 

“‘Cause,” their father laughs. “Yer not allowed to touch the ball twice in a row.”

“Boys,” their mother calls, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Wanna come help me prep dinner?” 

Osamu scrambles to his feet. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! What’re we makin’?”

Their mother laughs. “Not sure yet,” she says, ruffling his hair. “You’ll have to help me pick.” 

Osamu follows his mother into the kitchen. Atsumu stays watching volleyball. 

Osamu thinks that, right there, was the catalyst. Eleven years ago, at the tender age of six, Osamu left, and Atsumu stayed, and that was the nail in the coffin. If Osamu had stayed, if Atsumu had left—maybe things would be different. 

But, as it stands, Osamu left, Atsumu stayed, and they’ve been on the path to destruction ever since.

-

Osamu thinks a part of the reason they keep putting off their big fight, the fight that will likely ruin one or both of them, is because they don’t want to admit that it’s inevitable. They’re twins—twins aren’t supposed to resent each other. Twins are supposed to be there for each other, the one person they can always rely on to be standing at their side because they’ll never be fast enough to leave the other one behind. 

It’s a lot easier to just pretend it isn’t happening. It’s much easier to just go on acting like they’re both still volleyball stars destined to go pro together, destined to be teammates until the day they can’t play anymore. It’s much easier to act like nothing has changed, to act like Osamu didn’t say,  _ I’m quittin’ volleyball after high school  _ and Atsumu didn’t reply  _ If ya do that, yer dead to me.  _

It’s much more convenient to pretend the battle isn’t raging than it is to take the killing strike. It’s much easier to pretend that they aren’t standing on opposite sides of a battlefield, weapons ready, ammunition loaded. 

It’s much easier if they can just stay brothers for a little while longer. Osamu doesn’t want them to be enemies just yet. 

But it’s also killing him, and he knows it. It’s killing him to have to wake up every morning and decide whether or not he hates his other half. It’s killing him to look at Atsumu and  _ know  _ that no matter how good they are at pretending, no matter how strong the illusion of safety and love and happiness is, it’s just that—an illusion. It isn’t real. Sooner or later, they have to have the fight. And when they do, the story they’ve shared since birth might finally end, and Osamu doesn’t know if he can handle that, but he also doesn’t know if he can handle the constant blank pages, the uncertainty of whether or not he will wake up in the morning and still have a brother.

“Ya really need to talk to him,” Kita murmurs, reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of Osamu’s eyes. Osamu squeezes their hand, gazing down at them as their tongue pokes out of their mouth just slightly. They let their hand slip down Osamu’s face once they’ve finished fixing his hair, caressing his cheek and his chin before it drops back to their side. “I don’t like seein’ ya so conflicted all the time.”

“I know I do,” Osamu replies, as the two of them resume their walk back to the Kita household. Osamu likes to walk Kita home after practice, nowadays more than ever now that he can’t walk home with Atsumu the way he always used to. “But it’s just—’s hard. Ya don’t get it.”

“Yer right,” Kita hums. “I don’t. But I do get that this isn’t—a small fight. It’s not a fight over who ate the last puddin’. This is yer  _ future,  _ Osamu. Don’t lock yerself into a life you’ll hate just ‘cause ya don’t wanna lose yer brother.”

Osamu opens his mouth to speak, but finds that he doesn’t have the words. 

Kita squeezes his hand. “If Atsumu’s gonna hate ya for somethin’ like this, for choosin’ a life that’ll make ya happy when yer eighty years old—maybe he’s not the type of brother ya should be tryin’ to keep around.” 

“I know yer right,” Osamu breathes. “I just wish ya weren’t.”

“Sorry,” Kita murmurs. “I know it’s hard.”

Osamu presses his lips and says nothing, as the two of them come to a stop at the end of Kita’s front drive. Kita glances at the house, where a light is turned on in the front window, illuminating the flower bushes in shades of gold. 

“Call me if ya need to,” they say. “I’m always here for ya, okay? I love ya.” 

They press a kiss to Osamu’s cheek. Osamu hums. “I love ya, too. See ya tomorrow.”

He watches them walk up to their front door, unlocking it before they slip inside and he’s left all alone at the end of their drive. He knows he needs to talk to Atsumu. He knows they need to stop putting off this fight. 

He just really, really doesn’t want to.

-

Their parents get Atsumu a volleyball for his eighth birthday. Osamu gets an apron and a chef hat. They are both happy with their gifts, but there’s also an odd tension between the two of them—this is the first time they’ve ever gotten something different. Every year since they were toddlers, their parents have given them variations of the same thing. A blue car and a red truck, a stuffed bear and a stuffed dinosaur, always the same thing but slightly different. 

But when they turn eight, Atsumu gets a volleyball and Osamu gets an apron and a chef’s hat and their gifts are so different it’s almost funny. 

The strangest part is that both of them are aware, somewhere in the backs of their minds, that neither of these gifts are necessarily personal to the receiver. Osamu likes volleyball, too—they take lessons at the community center together. Atsumu likes to help their mother cook dinner, too—they’ve been her kitchen assistants since they were old enough to grasp the concept of ‘don’t touch the stove, it’s hot and it will burn you.’ The gifts are applicable to the both of them, in theory. 

Except—they really aren’t. They both play volleyball, but only one of them practices receiving drills in their bedroom until the ball hits the ceiling and their parents force him to stop. They both like to cook, but only one of them begs their mother to let him experiment, let him take the lead on a recipe and learn to do it all by himself. They have the same interests—it’s hard not to, when they’re attached at the hip. But they have different loves, at the end of the day. The same skills, different dedication. Atsumu loves volleyball more than Osamu does. Osamu loves cooking more than Atsumu does. Which is why when they turn eight, Atsumu gets the volleyball, and Osamu gets the apron.

But Osamu notices, a few days later, that whenever Atsumu asks Osamu to practice with him, he’s always holding the old ball. Atsumu doesn’t want to share his new volleyball, just like Osamu would never share his apron. 

They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about a lot of things. They’re only eight, after all. Eight-year-olds don’t talk about the funny feeling in their chest, the odd fear that one day, when Atsumu sets the volleyball—

Osamu won’t be there to spike it. 

-

Osamu pushes open the door to their bedroom when he arrives home and finds Atsumu laying on the bed, idly setting a volleyball to the ceiling. He doesn’t even look at Osamu when Osamu enters the room, yet another reminder of the strange tension between the two of them. Osamu closes the door behind himself, setting his bag at the foot of his bed before he sits down on the edge of his mattress. 

A chasm seems to stretch between the two of them, the five feet between their beds suddenly a gaping maw just waiting to swallow them whole. 

“We can’t keep doin’ this,” he says. It seems to echo in the silence that follows, an oppressive silence, a silence louder than anything Osamu has ever heard before. 

The volleyball drops into Atsumu’s hands. He doesn’t sit up, but he doesn’t toss the volleyball again, the only indication that he’s listening.

“‘Tsumu, c’mon,” Osamu presses. “We hafta talk ‘bout this at some point.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” Atsumu says. His voice is cold. It doesn’t sound like him. “Not today.”

“I don’t wanna put this off any longer,” Osamu replies. “I want to talk about it now.”

“Not today,” Atsumu insists. 

“It’s been weeks,” Osamu retorts. 

Atsumu is quiet for a moment. “Not now.”

“Then  _ when?”  _ Osamu demands. “We don’t have forever!”

Silence rings between the two of them. Atsumu sits up, staring at the volleyball in his lap. He lifts his eyes to meet Osamu’s. 

“Not today,” he says.

Osamu sighs.

-

Middle school is tense. Atsumu starts begging their parents for hair dye, bleaching his hair to an awful straw color every time his roots start to grow back. Their parents warn him that he’ll fry his hair, but he never seems to care.

The strangest part is that he never tells Osamu  _ why  _ he wants to dye his hair so bad. Osamu asks, multiple times. But every time, Atsumu plays if off, deflects, or even acts like he doesn’t hear the question. He never tells Osamu what his reason is for bleaching his roots every three weeks, ruining his hair in the process. 

Middle school is where the twins start to make their own friends. Osamu gets time to himself during lunch breaks and study halls, time to be quiet and reserved as he’s always wanted; Atsumu is very loud, and hanging around him forces Osamu to be loud, too. But Atsumu makes friends who are as loud as he is, friends who have no interest in Osamu who Osamu has no interest in, so Osamu gets to be quiet and Atsumu gets to be loud and it just might be the first time the two of them have ever been apart like this. 

Osamu goes looking for Atsumu one day, wandering the halls in search of Atsumu so that the two of them can walk to volleyball practice together. It’s hard to find him—Osamu doesn’t know where Atsumu and his friends run off to to hang out when there’s downtime. Eventually, though, he picks up the sound of Atsumu’s raucous laughter and loud voice guffawing from the courtyard where students often go outside to eat their lunch, and he slows his pace when he hears Atsumu mention his name. 

“God, I  _ had  _ to dye my hair!” Atsumu exclaims. His friends are silent as they listen to his story. “The teachers always think I’m 'Samu! I don’t wanna be like  _ him.”  _

Osamu’s feet stumble to a stop. 

Atsumu dyed his hair because he doesn’t want to be like Osamu. 

The two of them have never cared about what others think of them, including the numerous times a stranger has mixed them up. When they were really little, they used to try and swap places with each other, just to mess with their parents or their teachers. Their similarities have never bothered them—they know they aren’t the same. They know that Osamu’s a little chubbier than Atsumu, his eyes a little droopier. Atsumu’s face his more expressive, his angles sharper. And, if you look really close—you’ll notice that Osamu’s eyes are  _ grey _ , and Asumu’s eyes are  _ brown.  _

They’re different. They’ve always been content being the only people in the world who know that. 

But Atsumu dyed his hair because doesn’t want to look like Osamu anymore. 

Osamu skips volleyball practice for the first time in his life. Atsumu doesn't speak to him for three days.

-

“It’s been weeks, ‘Tsumu,” Osamu says, clenching his fists in the fabric of his comforter. “We have to talk ‘bout this sometime.”

“Why does that sometime have to be today?” Atsumu asks, wrinkling his nose. 

“Because I’m sick of walkin’ on eggshells with my own brother!” Osamu retorts. “Just ‘cause yer fond of bottlin’ up all yer emotions, don’t mean I want to.”

“I don’t do that,” Atsumu huffs, pouting. Osamu scoffs.

“Ya won’t even look at me,” he points out. Atsumu turns on his side, staring at Osamu with mockingly wide eyes. 

“‘S this good for ya?” he demands. “I’m lookin’ at ya now! All I see is yer ugly fuckin’ face ruinin’ the aesthetic of the room.”

“We have the same face,” Osamu reminds him. Atsumu rolls his eyes. After a few moments, Osamu swallows thickly and starts, “‘Tsumu we gotta—”

“Don’t say it,” Atsumu interrupts, finally sitting up. “I  _ don’t  _ want to talk about this.”

“I’m quittin’ volleyball!” Osamu blurts, glaring at Atsumu. Atsumu glowers back at him, working his jaw and rolling his knuckles. “After high school. I’m quittin’. Ya can’t keep ignorin’ this, ‘Tsumu.” 

“Sure I can,” Atsumu replies flippantly. “It’s real easy. Watch.” He rolls over to face the wall, and says nothing else.

It’s odd to fight with him like this, so calmly. Osamu is used to explosive barbs and fights that resort to fists and physical violence. This, right here, a conversation where neither of them is even yelling—it doesn’t sit right with him.

Osamu sighs. The anger is draining out of him, his will deserting him with every passing second. “Don’t make me go with ya,” he pleads. “Don’t make me follow ya, even though it’ll make me miserable.”

“Nobody’s forcin’ ya to play volleyball,” Atsumu snaps. “Ya don’t hafta stay with me just ‘cause I said I wanted ya to.”

“Yeah, I know,” Osamu says. “But I would.”

-

The Miya twins become a dynamic duo, a thing to be feared. Nobody fears Atsumu or Osamu, they fear the  _ Miya twins,  _ and even though Atsumu acts proud at games and at practice, Osamu can see it in his eyes—it grates on him that he has to share the spotlight. 

Atsumu isn’t the malicious type. He’s a bastard, and he doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks about him ( _ at all),  _ but he isn’t purposefully nasty. Osamu has always known that Atsumu dreams big—he wants much more than to be half of a dynamic duo. Atsumu wants to be the best, wants to sit at the very top of the volleyball world and know that there is nobody above him. You don’t get to be the best when you have a perfect match standing at your side, wearing your face. 

And maybe that’s why Atsumu starts practicing more than Osamu does. He starts staying late at the gym, and he practices at home when the coaches force him to leave. It starts to seem like every time they have a game or a practice game, Atsumu has learned some new trick he’s desperate to show off. He improves in leaps and bounds, and Osamu doesn’t, so Osamu pushes himself to keep up. They have the same skills, Osamu reminds himself. How could they not, when they have the same genetic makeup? It’s in their blood to be great volleyball players. 

Osamu pretends it doesn’t feel weird to think about that. He pretends he doesn’t feel a twisting in his chest, a burning in his gut that tells him that he isn't meant to be a volleyball player, even though he is Atsumu’s perfect duplicate. Atsumu was meant to play volleyball. Osamu was meant for—something else. 

High school is looming fast. Three short years, and then the two of them will be grown adults, off on their own in the world. Atsumu will probably be signed to a professional team, if he gets his dreams. Osamu will probably follow him, unless he can figure out what else it is that he wants to do before the time runs out on his dream, and he’s doomed to be Atsumu’s carbon copy for the rest of his life. 

Osamu glances at Atsumu sitting next to him on the bus. Atsumu isn’t paying attention to him, has his headphones in blaring some shitty pop song he’s been into lately.

They’re supposed to be a dynamic duo. Can they still be a duo, if Osamu doesn’t want what Atsumu wants? Can they still be the same, still be twins, if Atsumu loves volleyball more than anything and Osamu doesn’t? If they’re so fundamentally different?

Middle school raises questions Osamu doesn’t want to answer. But he privately thinks high school will be worse.

-

“What the hell would ya even do if ya stopped playin' volleyball?” Atsumu asks, wrinkling his nose. “‘S not like yer good for anythin’ else.”

The comment stings like a slap to the face. Osamu flinches, yanking a loose thread free from his comforter. “I wanna be a cook.” 

“A  _ cook?”  _ Atsumu exclaims. “Yer gonna give up a life of bein’ a volleyball star for—for what? A life in fast food?”

“Who the hell said anythin’ about fast food?” Osamu demands. “‘M gonna open up my own restaurant.”

Atsumu scoffs, but doesn’t say anything. He crosses his arms over his chest, averting his gaze. 

“The fuck’s that scoff s’posed to mean?” Osamu spits. 

“Nothin’,” Atsumu lies. 

Osamu stares. He wants to argue. He wants to pry. Atsumu is clearly thinking about something—he wouldn’t have scoffed if he didn’t have a comment to bite back and swallow like a bitter pill. Osamu wants to keep trying; he doesn’t like it when Atsumu goes silent in the middle of an argument. But—he’s so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of trying to explain himself to someone who doesn’t want to listen. 

Osamu sighs and lays on his back on the bed, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

He’s so fucking tired. 

-

Logically, Osamu has always known that he and Atsumu are different people. He’s known his whole life that he isn’t Atsumu’s carbon copy, and Atsumu isn’t his—they have different thoughts and emotions and souls, even if they have the same face. 

But when they both let go of the childish naivety and bubbliness in high school, when the rose tinted glasses of childhood shatter and break, it becomes very apparent very quickly that the two of them—they’re nothing alike. At all. Which isn’t a bad thing; they’re their own people, which is good. But it’s terrifying to think that the two of them are so very different. Being Atsumu’s twin has always been his safety net—without their similarities to fall back on, Osamu feels as though he’s standing on a tightrope that stretches across a canyon.

Nobody else seems to understand this fear of his. Then again, Osamu doesn’t try very hard to explain it to anyone. He isn’t very good at talking about or even acknowledging his emotions—especially not his insecurities. They ask him what’s wrong, when his eyes linger on Atsumu’s retreating back for too long. They ask him what he’s thinking about when he can’t seem to stop looking to his left for a twin that isn’t there. 

“Is somethin’ botherin’ ya?” Kita asks, when they and Osamu are halfway through cleaning up after practice. “Ya don’t seem to be as focused lately.”

Osamu pauses. He could be honest; there’s about a million things bothering him at the moment. It bothers him that he doesn’t want to pursue volleyball after high school. It bothers him that he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. It bothers him that he thinks he’ll end up locking himself into a career path and a lifestyle he doesn’t want because he doesn’t know what else to do, and it’d make Atsumu happy if he could just shut up and become a pro volleyball player.

It also bothers him that he and Atsumu aren’t the same anymore. And even if they never were, there was a time when it felt like they were. It felt like they thought the same things, that they could finish each other’s sentences without even having to be in the same room. They were so similar it almost hurts to think about now that they aren’t. 

“Growin' pains,” Osamu finally says. “Think I’m goin’ through a growth spurt.”

It isn’t entirely a lie, after all—it only hurts because the two of them have grown so very far apart. 

“Ah,” Kita replies, wiping down the volleyballs. “Can’t help ya with that. But at least growin’ pains don’t last forever, right?”

“Yeah,” Osamu hums. 

But a part of him suspects this pain won’t ever subside.

Osamu makes dinner that night, because their parents aren’t home.

“This is really good, ‘Samu,” Atsumu says through a mouthful of food. “If ya weren’t gonna go into volleyball, I’d tell ya to become a cook.”

Osamu pauses, a bite of rice halfway to his mouth. 

Atsumu nudges him. “What’s with the stupid look on yer face?”

“Nothin’,” Osamu says, clearing his throat and stuffing the bite of food into his mouth. He clearly only meant it as a passing comment, but Atsumu’s words seem to have stuck in Osamu’s mind. 

If he isn’t going out for volleyball, he could be a cook. 

Huh.

-

Osamu stares up at the ceiling. “Why can’t ya be happy for me?”

“‘Cause yer makin’ a mistake,” Atsumu replies. 

“Am I?” Osamu shoots back. “Or am I just makin’ a choice that scares ya? A choice ya wouldn’t make for yerself? A choice that’s gonna mean you’ll have to survive off of yer own merit from now on, ‘n ya can’t depend on me?” 

“Stop it,” Atsumu says. 

“No,” Osamu huffs. “I won’t. I want an answer. A real one. I wanna know why ya can’t just be happy for me, now that I know what I wanna do with my life. Why does it always revolve around what  _ you  _ want?”

“It doesn’t!” Atsumu snaps. “This has always been what  _ we  _ wanted. I’m not the one turnin’ the tables here, ‘Samu!” 

“That doesn’t mean ya should just expect me to live in yer shadow forever!” Osamu retorts. “I wanna be free to make my own choices!”

“Free from  _ what?”  _ Atsumu demands. 

“From  _ you,  _ ya jackass!” Osamu explodes. 

Silence rings in the room for several long moments. 

Atsumu stands. Osamu sits up, watching as Atsumu lingers near the edge of his bed for several long moments, before he says, “Well. I’m sorry it was so fuckin’ hard bein’ my brother. I’ll try not to drag ya down any longer.” 

“That ain't what I meant,” Osamu tries, but Atsumu’s already heading for the door. He frowns, thinking. Kita's words from earlier suddenly pop into his mind. _A life that'll make him happy at age eighty._ Osamu hesitates before he calls, “Hey.”

Atsumu stalls, his hand on the doorknob. 

“Let’s make a bet,” Osamu says. “I’ll do what I want, ‘n ya can go pro. We’ll see who’s happier at age eighty.” 

Atsumu doesn’t say anything for so long, Osamu almost doesn’t think he’s going to answer. Finally, he says, “Yer on.”

And then he’s gone. Osamu falls back onto the bed, blowing his bangs out of his eyes with a heavy sigh. 

These growing pains really fucking hurt.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> idk
> 
> i started this back in december and im finishing it now just bc i wanted to fucking write this might actually be terrible lmfao 
> 
> anyway be gay do crime see u next time and as always, come hang out w me on tumblr @fake-charliebrown, twt @fakecharlieb, or check out my [carrd](https://fakecharliebrown.carrd.co/)


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